Iraq war costs $12.5 bn a month: Stiglitz

Xinhua Washington, March 10 (Xinhua) A new book, authored by Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, says that the cost of the Iraq war has now reached $12.5 billion a month, up from $4.4 billion per month in 2003. Stiglitz and co-writer Linda Bilmes in their new book “The Three Trillion War” have given the figures, according to US media reports Monday.

The book says the war will cost at least $3 trillion before it’s over, based on the forecast that US troops won’t leave Iraq completely before 2017.

The spiralling cost is because of the spurt of additional troop deployment, higher fuel cost, larger bonuses to attract US citizens to enlist and replacement or repair of damaged, worn-out or destroyed equipment, the authors said.

Stiglitz is a Nobel Prize-winning economist from Columbia University and Bilmes is an expert at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. Xinhua